


Trouble Doesn't Get a Snow Day

by thefaerielights



Category: Trouble Series - Stephanie Tromly
Genre: Banter, Cookies are Good for Bribes, F/M, People Are Clumsy, slight AU, snowy day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-04
Updated: 2018-01-04
Packaged: 2019-02-28 04:33:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13263765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefaerielights/pseuds/thefaerielights
Summary: I sighed. “Fine – I’ll ask my mom to pick up some cookie dough and I’ll make you cookies tonight. You can have them really fresh from the oven. Now will you just shovel the driveway already?”Digby smiled at me. “Throw in a big glass of milk and you have a deal.”I rolled my eyes. “Just get outside before I change my mind.”(slight AU because this basically takes place during Trouble Makes a Comeback without all the mystery stuff going on)





	Trouble Doesn't Get a Snow Day

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer** : If I owned the Trouble series, then this book would end as a trilogy because I want more Princeton and Digby feels.

Snow is really such a beautiful sight when it’s covering the front yard and is the reason that I don’t have school today. It’s not so wonderful when your mother decides that you need to go outside, right now, and shovel the driveway so that she can go out and get some food.

We wouldn’t need to get food in the first place if it weren’t for Digby coming over and eating everything that wasn’t Officer Cooper’s food. I blame that line of thought for getting the idea in my head in the first place: this is all Digby’s fault, so I should make Digby do the work.

_I have a batch of cookies fresh out of the oven with your name on it._

It didn’t take too long for Digby to text back – the lure of food was too much.

_Is it vegan or gluten-free?_

_Nope – it’s full of flour and egg products and whatever else always seems to be missing from Cooper’s horrible and healthy food._

_I’m there._

I really shouldn’t have been that surprised when Digby was knocking on the door a mere four minutes later – to be honest, I’m surprised that he wasn’t there as soon as I sent the first text, simply because that was Digby.

Digby’s jacket looked a little too thin for all the snow, which had finally stopped falling, but at least he wasn’t only wearing his regular suit jacket. He dropped the winter coat on the ground in his haste to get to the kitchen.

“Are these cookies your doing or your mom’s?”

“Not so fast – there’s a price of admission,” I said as I stood in front of the door into the kitchen, blocking Digby from simply grabbing some other food that wasn’t made-up.

Digby cocked an eyebrow and crossed his arms. “Princeton, did you lure me here with false promises?”

I crossed my own arms and tried to mimic his expression. “You bet I did – you’re the reason my mom wants to use me as her own personal servant.”

“Ah, the angst of the regular teenage girl when she isn’t chasing after missing girls. Doesn’t this make you feel like a regular Ms. High School?”

“No, it makes me feel like you should be the one out in the cold shoveling the driveway.”

“Oh, I see – and what happens if I do your chores for you?”

“Then you can have some food as your reward.”

“I always get food here anyway.”

“Well, maybe that’ll change if you don’t shovel the driveway.”

Digby laughed. “That’s not the best threat – you haven’t proven that you’re the best at following through on such lofty ideals.”

“Not feeding you isn’t a lofty ideal, it’s simply something that will happen. You’ll just have to find someone else who has lots of food and an open-door policy.”

“You know, I’m still not scared. You’re going to have to do better.”

I sighed. “Fine – I’ll ask my mom to pick up some cookie dough and I’ll make you cookies tonight. You can have them really fresh from the oven. Now will you just shovel the driveway already?”

Digby smiled at me. “Throw in a big glass of milk and you have a deal.”

I rolled my eyes. “Just get outside before I change my mind.”

 

* * *

 

I don’t know what it says about me that I didn’t feel that guilty for forcing Digby to do my chores – I think it was a sign that I was becoming a little too Digby-like. Of course, it got me out of spending half an hour or more outside in the sub-freezing air, so I didn’t care that much. Besides, I had already given Mom the shopping list with cookie dough and milk right at the top. She had taken one look out the window and simply nodded instead of giving me grief for getting Digby to do my work or reminding me that Cooper would never approve of this.

Besides, Cooper was sleeping right now – he was working the night shift. Knowing Digby, he would never leave any evidence behind.

It didn’t take that long for Digby to dig out Mom’s car, but even when she left for the store, he kept working away, clearing the rest of the driveway and the sidewalk. I wasn’t sure if he thought that he would get more food that way – although he was right, I would never stop feeding him, no matter how much he had corrupted me – or if he found it relaxing in his weird, Digby way.

I stepped outside to check on him after he had been out there a good thirty or forty minutes already.

“Are you warm enough in that jacket?” I called to him from the slightly warmer (well, that’s what I told myself) porch.

“Are you Princeton or Mamma Digby now?”

I rolled my eyes. “No, I’m just a caring person, although sometimes I wonder why.”

“That’s what you have me for – to get rid of that pesky humanity and silly empathy. Why do you need that when you can be witty instead?”

“You’re hopeless,” I said. “Are you coming in any time soon?”

“I’m not done yet!”

“You don’t even have gloves, you idiot!”

He used one of his gloveless hands to flip me off and then went right back to his shoveling. I think he was even whistling, the idiot.

I went back inside to try and find some gloves for the idiot, because I was obviously a caring idiot myself. I found one of my gloves on a table in the front hall and the other in the kitchen, sticking out from under a pile of mail.

Since I was in the kitchen, I figured I would be an even kinder idiot and make some hot chocolate. We had a half-crushed box stuck behind a box of no-grain, uber-healthy cereal, so I heated up some almond milk and put it all in a thermos, hoping Digby wouldn’t notice the almond-ness of it all.

I had a lot more concern for my personal warmth, so I put on my heaviest winter boots, a thick jacket, a scarf, a random pair of gloves since I was about to give up my own, and a knit hat. Once I was all ready and felt a little hot in the front hall, I stepped outside again.

Digby was nearly done with the sidewalk. He had started at the edge, at the end of the driveway, and had made his way back to the porch, only about five more yards to go before he was done. I walked down the stairs, trying to make my footsteps as wide as possible.

“Hey, you are messing with my work space!” Digby said as he glared at the foot prints I had left. I had to admit, I probably could have walked through the grass instead, but I wasn’t feeling _that_ charitable.

“Well, I come baring gifts,” I said as I held out the pair of gloves and thermos.

“Princeton, it’s not even 5 o’clock, isn’t it a little early to break into the parental’s liquor cabinet?”

I rolled my eyes – I seemed to do that a lot more when Digby was around. “It’s hot chocolate, you idiot. Just drink the damn stuff and put these gloves on.”

Digby grabbed one of the gloves and did his best to put them on. “Let me guess – these are yours, not Cooper’s?”

I had to admit, they were on the small side when they were on Digby’s hands. I knew he was taller than me, and it made sense that he would have bigger hands as well, but I hadn’t realized how much until he was trying to shove his middle finger into the middle hole. It would be comical if I wasn’t so worried that he was going to rip my gloves.

“Here, take these instead,” I said as I pulled off the gloves I was wearing now. “I don’t know whose they are, but they’re a little too big for me. Just stop stretching out mine.”

I did my best to take off my gloves while still holding the thermos. It started to slip from my hands – I made a grab for it at the same time that Digby tried to stop its fall. We both leaned over in our attempt and our heads knocked together. I started to trip over the shovel while one of Digby’s hands got stuck in my hair when he reached up to grip his aching head.

I’m sure we looked pretty funny from the outside, but from my side of things, all I could think was “Please don’t let my face fall into the snow.”

It felt like we were falling in slow motion, tripping back over our own feet as well as the shovel. I think I put a hand out to reach out and stop our fall, but there wasn’t anything to grab onto. I felt Digby’s hand reaching around me, holding onto my waist – I don’t know if he thought he was being helpful or if he wanted to make sure that I fell along with him.

Well, my face didn’t fall into the snow – instead, I ended up faceplanting onto Digby’s chest as he landed on his back, cushioning me a bit. Our feet were hopeless tangled together, some of my hair still caught in his hand, and his other elbow was digging into my side.

“You just had to be a decent person, Princeton,” Digby grunted from underneath me.

“Now it’s your turn to be a decent person who stops pulling on my hair and bruising my ribs,” I said as I tried to untangle my hair.

“You know, you should get a better conditioner. Or shampoo. Or brush. Which one helps with knots again?” Digby asked as he reached out with his other hand, which involved pulling me in closer to his chest so that he could get his arm around my back.

I tried to curse at him, but my mouth was right up against his jacket and my voice was too muffled even to my own ears. I think Digby got the gist, though, because he was chuckling, his laugh reverberating through his chest and shaking me as well.

“There we go,” Digby said as he finally pulled his hand free. He reached down in between our chests, ignoring my little shriek, and grabbed the gloves from where they had fallen, somewhere down by my stomach. He pulled them on a little easier, but they were still a bit small.

“Fine, where did my gloves go?” I started searching Digby’s jacket and the ground around us.

“Well, it’s not down _there_ ,” Digby said in a slightly higher voice than normal while grabbing my wandering hands. He slapped my gloves into my hand, covering my freezing palm with snow in the process.

“Why couldn’t I have handed the gloves to you instead of you looking for them?” I glared at him, trying to push myself back from Digby. Of course, since I was on top of him, that involved pushing myself off of him, which made him grunt in pain and jerk so that I just felt right back down.

“This isn’t working,” I muttered, talking into his jacket again. I was getting too well-acquainted with the damn thing.

“You need better upper body strength,” Digby said as he rolled us over without any warning.

“What the hell are you doing?” I shrieked as the back of my head was cushioned by the very, very cold snow. In the process of falling, my hair had gotten pushed off so that it was barely on my head, leaving my neck and hair very exposed and unprotected. Now I was burrowing into the snow with Digby a little too close, right above me.

“I’m using my superior upper body strength,” Digby said with a smirk as he bent his arms like he was doing a push up and rose above me. “I forgot one important detail, though.”

I glared at him. “And what was that?”

“I don’t actually have good upper body strength,” Digby said with a bit of a grunt as his arms started to shake. “I think I’m coming back down.”

“Oh, for god’s sake,” I said with an eye roll. I reached up and pushed Digby to the side, rolling the other way at the same time. He landed with a grunt, but the snow was there to cushion him as well, so I didn’t feel all that bad.

“Wow, you’re really great at thanking a guy for doing your chores,” Digby said as he pushed himself into a seated position. He looked over at the area of the sidewalk that still had snow on it. “You know what, you can shovel the rest all by yourself.”

“I didn’t have to shovel the sidewalk, just the driveway.”

Digby didn’t have a quick quip to throw back at me, so I took that as an opportunity to pull myself to my feet. Digby was standing before me, so he held out a hand for assistance. I considered it for a moment, unsure if he was just going to pull me back down to the ground.

Digby sighed. “Sometimes a hand is just a hand and sometimes I’m just trying to be helpful.”

I rolled my eyes but grabbed it anyway. Digby pulled me to my feet with a grunt and a bit of help from myself – he really couldn’t brag about his upper body strength too much.

We were still brushing the snow off ourselves and each other when the car pulled into the driveway. I picked up the thermos and handed it to Digby. “You ready to make some cookies?”

“Fine, but I’m eating some of the dough raw – salmonella be damned.”

“Sounds like a plan,” I said with a smile.


End file.
